backgrounds - colour development

After developing my backgrounds and drawing over them a few times to get them right, I finally settled on ones I was happy with and started doing some colour trials. To find the best way to colour them, I used my inspirational images and examples of the artwork style I like and wanted to stylise the animation in and used these as a base. Using one of my backgrounds, the reception I tried out a few ideas...







From these I decided on the final style that I preferred and though would look best as the background for the animation and with the characters I designed. The first few attempts I thought worked ok, but I wasn't sure how they would look with the characters and I couldn't get them as neat and detailed using the technique. I then combined using watercolours and patels which made the image stand out a little more, however in the last version I used pencil to outline and highlight some areas which I found to be more effective. I then went on to colour the rest of the background designs in the same style...






From here, I will take them into photoshop and add in some extra details, for example highlight areas, put in some shadows, make some finishing touches to really complete the background pieces.